The Tempest Character and Theme Quotes

Essential Passage by Character: Caliban

MIRANDA:
Abhorrèd slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison.

CALIBAN:
You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

Summary
Causing the storm to take advantage of the fate that has brought within his grasp, Prospero explains his past history to his daughter Miranda. She remembers little, since she was only three when their banishment occurred. Since that time, the only beings she has seen are her father, spirits such as Ariel, and the half-breed monster, Caliban, who functions as their slave. Causing Miranda to fall asleep, Prospero summons Ariel to determine the locations of the passengers of the ship. Assured by the spirit that all is well and all prisoners are accounted for and separated, Prospero commands him to bring Ferdinand to the cave where they humans are living.

Awakening Miranda, Prospero continues his tale. He then summons the slave-monster Caliban, who arrives sullenly. Caliban reminds his master that this island home had belonged to him before the arrival of Prospero and Miranda. Caliban had been living there alone, after the death of his mother, the witch Sycorax. Less than human and living like an animal, Caliban had been tamed and “civilized” by Prospero and Miranda.

Prospero castigates Caliban as being ungrateful for the kindness shown to him. Prospero says that he has treated Caliban with only humane care, in return for which Caliban tried to rape Miranda.

Miranda herself enters the conversation, stating that Caliban has resisted any attempt to show him kindness. He has rejected the efforts of the humans to turn him toward goodness. Miranda herself had taught him how to speak. At their arrival on the island, Prospero and Miranda found Caliban gibbering, without any recognizable understanding of language. Through patience and kindness, Miranda gave him words. But despite his now sentient speech, Caliban’s sub-human nature made him impossible to live with. Miranda states that it is only right that Caliban has been...

Essential Passage by Character: Prospero

PROSPERO:
My brother and thy uncle, called Antonio—
I pray thee mark me, that a brother should
Be so perfidious—he whom next thyself
Of all the world I loved, and to him put
The manage of my state; as at that time
Through all the signories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed
In dignity, and for the liberal arts
Without a parallel; those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle—
Dost thou attend me?

MIRANDA:
Sir, most heedfully.

PROSPERO:
Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who t'advance and who
To trash for over-topping, new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed ’em,
Or else new formed ’em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i'th’ state
To what tune pleased his ear, that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And sucked my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not!

MIRANDA:
O good sir, I do.

PROSPERO:
I pray thee mark me.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retired,
O'er prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awakened an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was, which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact, like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie, he did believe
He was indeed the duke; out o'th’ substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty
With all prerogative; hence his ambition growing—
Dost thou hear?

MIRANDA:
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

PROSPERO:
To have no screen between this part he played
And him he played it for; he needs will be
Absolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable; confederates—
So dry he was for sway—with the King of Naples
To give him annual tribute, do him homage,
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
The dukedom, yet unbowed alas, poor Milan!—
To most ignoble stooping.

Summary
As Prospero observes the shipwreck of his enemies, his daughter Miranda requests that he at last tell her the history of their past, including their life before being stranded on this island. Many times before she has requested her father to relate to her the story, but he has always balked, stating that there will come a time in which he will be open and honest with her. Now that his brother, along with the other men who were so instrumental in his betrayal and exile from Milan, Prospero concludes that the time is right.

Prospero tells Miranda that, as the Duke of Milan, he had been more interested in study than in the state. Leaving the day-to-day operations of running his domain to his brother Antonio, Prospero instead devoted himself to...

Essential Passage by Theme: Humanity

MIRANDA:
What is't? A spirit?
Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit.

PROSPERO:
No, wench, it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses
As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest
Was in the wreck, and but he's something stained
With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou mightest call him
A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,
And strays about to find ’em

MIRANDA:
I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble.

FERDINAND:[Aside] Most sure, the goddess
On whom these airs attend! [to Miranda] Vouchsafe my
prayer
May know if you remain upon this island,
And that you will some good instruction give
How I my bear me here. My prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is—O you wonder!—
If you be maid or no?

Summary
Having raised the storm that wrecked the ship carrying his enemies, Prospero commands the assistance of Ariel, his spirit servant, to scatter the men in separate groups. Specifically, Ariel is to bring Ferdinand, the son of King Alonso of Naples, to the cave. Doing so, Ariel presents Ferdinand to Prospero and to Miranda.

Prior to this, the only people that Miranda has seen are her aged father, the spirit Ariel, and the half-human/half-demon Caliban. Seeing a man of her own age is a shock to her sensibilities. She is unsure what sort of creature he is. Ferdinand does not fit into the three categories of beings she knows: old man, spirit, monster. Thus, she believes, he must be something totally different.

Because of Ferdinand’s pleasant appearance, Miranda at first thinks he must be a spirit. Though different from Ariel, he is even more separated in appearance from her father and the hideous Caliban. Prospero corrects her saying that he eats, sleeps, and has senses just as he and Miranda do. He explains further to his daughter that Ferdinand is from the shipwreck that they witnessed. He points out that, though he is transfigured by the grief he feels at the supposed loss of his father, he is still a “goodly person.” He further explains that, at this moment, Ferdinand is trying to seek the companions that he has lost.

Miranda, still in awe at the sight of the first young man she has seen, objects that he is something more than human, perhaps even divine. She states that nothing natural, such as she and her father are, could ever look so...